ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: To describe the clinical and epidemiological profile of the patients in the Burn Unit of the Hospital Universitario San Vicente de Paúl (HUSVP) de Medellín, Colombia, from 1994-2004. METHODS: Retrospective descriptive study of all pediatric and adult burn patients. The following were recorded: age, gender, cause, extent and severity of the burns, time in the hospital, operations, complications and death rate. Statistica 6.0 (Stafsoft Inc.) was used. RESULTS: Two thousand three hundred and nineteen patients were admitted, 66.8% were males and 62.9% were less than 15 years old. Burns caused by scalding were the most frequent (45.9%) followed by flames (38.5%) The average burn area was 26.9%. Average hospital stay was 26.9 days. In 2004, 40.4% of the patients required surgery; 13.4% of the patients had complications. 7.4% of the patients died, with an average burn area of 62%; burns caused by flames accounted for 63% of the deaths. CONCLUSIONS: There is a continuing improvement in hospital stay, survives burn sizes, with figures comparable to others without access to a tissue bank or skin cultivation.
